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AC Technicians Try To Keep Cool

The busy season for air-conditioning service technicians involves 3 a.m. calls, 130-degree attics, and the patience of a Zen master.

When the mercury rises to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity is high, the phones at air-conditioning companies start ringing and don’t stop for months.

“People could avoid a lot of issues by scheduling routine maintenance in the spring and fall,” says Stan Burkhart, Blaylock Heating & Air Conditioning service manager. “Many times they just need to change their air filter.”

Routine maintenance includes checking for refrigerant leaks, cleaning the condenser coils and changing filters, Burkhart said. A scheduled maintenance call runs about $80 an hour, plus tax and any parts needed. An emergency call after normal operating hours will be $120 an hour.

“It should make it run more efficient, and that cuts down on breakdowns, which happen at the worst times of the day,” said Patrick Stewart, office manager for Atchley Air.

Efficiency leads to less money on energy bills. A unit that does not have to work hard to move air through it will use less electricity, says Heath Lowder, a Blaylock service technician.

“If the condenser isn’t kept clean, it will pull more amperage,” Lowder said. “I clean mine a couple times a year, but I’m kind of a polar bear and like it really cool in the house.”

A foam cleaning agent is used to keep from damaging the unit. Even a hard-spraying garden house can crimp the aluminum radiator on the condenser and make it less efficient. Lowder said he also uses the “averaging option” on his electric bill, and hasn’t paid over $170 a month.

The summer of 2013 has proven to be less intense than 2012 though, he said, when 90-degree temps began as early as March and Lowder was telling his wife not to make any plans for the rest of the summer.

As the temperature stays high and air units continue to falter, Blaylock will see more than 100 calls a day to divide between a staff of seven service technicians. That leads to 14-hour work days, and a lot of sweaty brows over the course of a week.

“The worst ones are when it is 130 degrees in an attic and sweat is just rolling down you,” Lowder said. “You can really only stand five to 10 minutes at a time. This job takes a lot of patience. When it gets hot, temperaments can get high, too. Not everyone can do this and keep their cool.”

The voltage meters the technicians use also have a temperature gauge. Burkhart said he was recently in an attic in Alma with no ventilation.

“It was 150 degrees. I only lasted a couple minutes,” Burkhart said.

Condensation from units that are in attics can also lead to damage. If a drip pan cracks, condensation from the air conditioner can collect and damage ceilings, walls and floors. One person who left the air running while out of town came home to $20,000 in flooring damage from a crack in the drip pan.

On Monday morning, Lowder’s jobs were a cakewalk in comparison. On the second floor of the Stephens Building in downtown Fort Smith, Lowder replaced a 60-amp fuse in a circuit breaker. The fuse had been changed Friday, leading him to think the 10-year-old unit doesn’t have much life left.

“I play doctor with these things. Sometimes I can bring them back to life, and sometimes I can’t,” Lowder said before taking a photo of the unit’s specifications with his iPhone.

At Grand Avenue Baptist Church, Lowder met up with building director James “Woody” Woodward to inspect one of the church’s 90-ton units. Using an energy management system on his computer, Woodward had noticed a temperature increase near the end of Sunday’s service. More than 1,000 churchgoers, and the stage lights, had driven the temperature up from a starting point of 65 degrees to 73. Woodward said he likes to keep it at 70 degrees in the sanctuary.

Lowder hooked up a 30-pound R-22 refrigerant tank to recharge the freon in one of the units, and replaced two fuses in another. The church has roughly 240,000 square feet of space to cool, requiring 62 air units.

Stewart said although a majority of Atchley’s business comes from scheduled maintenance contracts, the business has still received nearly 30 calls a day over the last few weeks to repair air conditioners.

Due to Environmental Protection Agency regulations, only licensed technicians can refill, or “recharge,” air-conditioning units with refrigerant. By 2020, the EPA will no longer allow R-22 refrigerant to be produced.

“HCFC-22 (also known as R-22) has been the refrigerant of choice for residential heat pump and air-conditioning systems for more than four decades,” the EPA website states. “By Jan. 1, 2020, The Montreal Protocol requires the U.S. to reduce its consumption of HCFCs by 99.5 percent below the U.S. baseline. Refrigerant that has been recovered and recycled/reclaimed will be allowed beyond 2020 to service existing systems, but chemical manufacturers will no longer be able to produce R-22 to service existing air conditioners and heat pumps.”

The alternative refrigerant that will be allowed by the EPA is R-410A, “a blend of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that does not contribute to depletion of the ozone layer, but, like R-22, contributes to global warming,” the website adds.